If you've been watching the headlines lately and feeling a little uneasy about your retirement savings, you're not alone. Market volatility has a way of making even the most prepared people question everything they've built.

But here's what we know: noise is not new. And a good plan is built for exactly this.

We Don't Predict. We Prepare.

At Thistle Wealth, our investment philosophy is grounded in evidence, not speculation. We don't time markets, forecast economies, or pick individual stocks based on hunches.

What we do instead is build portfolios designed to weather uncertainty — and support your retirement income for as long as you need it.

This matters more than it might seem. There's a meaningful difference between:

• Investing to grow wealth
• Investing to sustain it

Most portfolios are built with accumulation in mind. Retirement requires something different entirely.

What the Data Actually Shows

When markets feel unstable, it helps to zoom out. Looking at U.S. stock market data going back to 1926:

• Positive years have occurred about 75% of the time
• The long-term average annualized return has been around 10%
• About three-quarters of down years have been followed by up years — including a 19.8% loss in 2022 followed by a 26.6% gain in 2023

None of this means downturns aren't real or that they don't sting. They do. But understanding the full picture — rather than reacting to any single chapter — is what allows a plan to hold steady.

Staying invested through uncertainty is one of the most valuable things you can do. Missing even the best week of returns in a given period can meaningfully reduce your long-term outcome. There is no reliable way to time the market, and attempting to do so often costs more than it saves.

Why Retirement Investing Is Different

During your working years, a market downturn was painful but recoverable. You kept contributing, the market eventually recovered, and your portfolio bounced back.

Retirement removes that safety net.

When you're drawing income from your portfolio rather than adding to it, a significant downturn in the early years can have lasting consequences — even if markets eventually recover. This is called sequence of returns risk, and it's one of the most important risks that rarely gets discussed clearly.

It's one reason we recommend holding one to two years of spending in liquid reserves. This gives you the ability to cover income needs without selling investments during a downturn, and gives your portfolio the time it needs to recover.

It's also why longevity matters so much in how we build plans:

• A healthy 65-year-old woman has a 50% chance of living past 87
• For couples, the odds are high that at least one spouse reaches their 90s
• Most portfolios aren't built with that timeline in mind

Ours are.

The Plan Comes First. Always.

One of the most important things we do at Thistle Wealth is start with your financial plan — before we talk about investments at all. Your portfolio should serve your plan, not the other way around.

This means we look at your full retirement picture:

• When you'll stop working
• Where your income will come from
• How Social Security fits in
• What taxes will look like across different withdrawal scenarios
• What happens if something unexpected arises

Only then do we design a portfolio that supports that plan with the right mix of risk, diversification, and tax efficiency.

We invest with Dimensional Fund Advisors, a firm built on decades of financial science. Their approach trusts market prices, uses information systematically, and targets higher expected returns without the guesswork of traditional stock picking. Access to their funds is available only through fee-only fiduciary advisors — which is exactly what we are.

Knowing You Have a Plan Changes Everything

There's a real difference between investors who follow their emotions through market cycles — moving from optimism to fear and back again — and those who move through those same cycles with steady confidence because they have a plan they trust.

That confidence doesn't come from ignoring what's happening. It comes from knowing your plan was built to account for it.

If you're five to eight years from retirement and you've been carrying the mental load of wondering whether you're truly prepared, that's exactly the work we do together. We bring structure to years of financial decisions, make sure everything is coordinated and working together, and help you step into retirement knowing your plan is doing its job.

You've spent decades building. Let's make sure it lasts.

Ready to Talk Through Where You Stand?

We'd love to connect. Visit thistlewealth.com to learn more or schedule a conversation.

Thistle Wealth is a fee-only fiduciary registered investment adviser in the State of Oregon. This post is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results.